No worst, there is none
by betweenthetwo
Summary: As her husband’s life is systematically destroyed, and her lover contemplates the small price of vengeance, black oblivion evades a ruined Hermione.


****

No worst, there is none

Rating: K+… purely for dark themes.

Summary: As her husband's life is systematically destroyed, and her lover contemplates the small price of vengeance, black oblivion evades a ruined Hermione.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Hermione, Severus and Ron. Gerard Manley Hopkins owns the title. I own the angst.

Author's Notes: I'm writing these things ridiculously fast. This one is… very dark. Very depressing. Very desolate.

* * *

There she is, shaking as she tells him, the words falling from her mouth to kneel on the floor at his feet. But they cannot beg for forgiveness. No, all her words can do is curl up at his feet, and weep. And she is weeping too, soft, quiet tears. Her sobbing ended hours ago, in the dungeons. In the comforting, cold dark. She longs for that black oblivion. It eludes her.

So he stands, with her words weeping at his feet, and he cannot speak. He can only listen and she translates his whole life into a language he cannot understand. The words read backwards, the tongue is foreign, it means nothing to him. Nothing. He wants her to stop. To stop changing his life into something he cannot recognise. To stop her quiet crying that speaks a tongue he can understand, one that is all too real. To stop her subdued dismantling of the past four years. But she won't stop, and he cannot speak to tell her that he has heard enough. That if she speaks just one more word, he will break.

She keeps talking. Keeps explaining. Keeps apologising. Keeps dismantling.

The systematic destruction of his life, he thinks, and is somewhat impressed at his own poetic take on the situation. No one would think him capable of it, certainly not her. Oh she had long told him of his ability, his hidden talent. But her quiet madness is telling him far more now. It's not that she doesn't love him. It's not that he isn't enough for her. It's not that he's stupid. It's not anything to do with him, and that alone tells him far more than weeping, kneeling words ever could.

There is so much she cannot say. Nothing is coming out right, her honesty too real and too terrifying for her to handle. She has lied for so long now; she is used to her well rehearsed excuses, her practiced falsehoods. This unscripted honesty feels awkward on her tongue, looks lost at his feet. Oh that it had never come to this. Oh that she could have loved him, spent eternity with him, were it not for her own infallibility. Were it not for the call of the sweet, welcoming dark.

She still has not given him a name. If he could speak, he wonders if he would ask. Does he want to know? Could he bear to have a name, a tangible thief of his happiness? Would he hate her less if he could distribute the blame more evenly? Would he love her less if he knew for what other she had been screaming, arching, loving? He cannot think of a single possibility, which he knows is ridiculous. His wife is a beautiful, incredibly intelligent woman; of course there would be millions who would desire her. But this woman before him, this adulteress with her muted tears and her disgusting truths, is not his accomplished wife. She is filth, she is everything he hates most, and he cannot think of any man who would touch her.

* * *

In his dungeons, drinking himself into oblivion, sits the man who would touch her. Who would taste her, tease her, take her, and who had ultimately, tired of her. She had been interesting, satisfying, for a while. She had been surprising, on the whole, with the exception of her rather predictable ending. Only a Gryffindor would react to the curtain fall with such dramatics. Did she not realise that the place for spectacle was before the end of the theatrics? Wasn't she supposed to be smart? 

More to the point, wasn't he? He should have known better than to get involved with a Gryffindor. But in his defence, it had been her only failing. She was beautiful, had a razor sharp mind, and most importantly she was married to that fool Weasley. The perfect woman for him… so readily poised for his revenge on the world. From their first frenzied kiss, to their last carnal tryst, he had anticipated the beauty of the vengeance. The elegance of that final cut. Yes, he had taken her in the name of the Order, in the name of Dumbledore, in the name of Potter and in the name of everyone and everything that had betrayed him. He had led their princess astray, and exacted the perfect retribution.

Why then, the alcohol? Why the melancholic sigh, the regretful glance to the bed he could be sharing with her?

Nothing but maudlin ruminations that he should be above this. Nothing but regret that he wasn't.

Oh he did not repent ruining Weasley's flimsy happiness, or tainting the Gryffindor goodness. He did, however, regret having to say goodbye to her feral cries, to those wonderfully illicit nights. He consoled himself that it wouldn't be long before he found himself someone else to pass the time with, to exact his hollow vengeance through.

He raised his glass in a silent toast to his victim, the poor, foolish girl.

She had done nothing but imagine herself in love with him, and he had let her. He had waited until she was well and truly besotted, and he had taken every ounce of her affection, and he had ripped it to shreds. And he had enjoyed it.

* * *

Her thoughts are on him again, even as she faces her husband with her sins. She can not shake her mind from the cruel, horrible god who has slain her, and left only this shell to crawl home with. This vague memory of her former self, this shadowy eulogy to a post-darkness her. She wonders if her husband can see that beneath her tears, her words and her apologies there is nothing left. She is empty, void of everything but this horrible shame, this terrible longing, this consummate sin. 

He cannot look at her any longer. Turning his back on her weeping confessions, he pauses before he walks away from the woman who used to hold his heart. His voice has returned. He wants to know who. He does not care why, or when, or how. These things she has told him, these things he knows for himself. But the face needs to be placed on the crime, the sin needs its identity.

The name that falls from her lips like a prayer cuts him through and stops him dead. He cannot move further, she cannot stop the floods of tears falling fresh from her eyes.

He turns to her, one last time. Sees the sobbing mess that has taken the wife he once knew, and knows that she is the one who needs to be pitied. He wonders at her naivety, her uncharacteristic stupidity. He does not wonder at her lover's lack of morals. He does not question his motives. He had thought no man capable of loving her in her ruined guilt, and he was right.

He had expected more from the brightest witch of her age, from his wife.

He had expected no less from Snape.


End file.
